from South Africa
WORLDWIDE TAXI FOCUS from USA
TAXI CRIME SPIKES IN PRETORIA AS DRIVERS KILLED AND COMMUTERS ROBBED
Robbers in the Tshwane region have been boarding taxis in Pretoria city centre and along the routes heading into the township, producing firearms and robbing everybody in the taxi, taking items such as cellphones, watches, money and even groceries. According to the Pretoria Rekord, various taxi associations in Tshwane joined hands to raise awareness of the killing and robberies of taxi drivers and commuters, by what is believed to be organised syndicates. A motorcade recently began in the Pretoria CBD targeting hotspot areas. Tshwane South African Taxi Council (Santaco) regional spokesperson Mack Makata said they were concerned over the spate of robberies on the rise in Tshwane and even reaching areas of the West Rand. He said the crimes were notably increasing as South Africa was heading into the festive season. “What is concerning is that these crimes occur at any time of the day, targeting drivers and commuters.” He said last month a commuter was robbed of R25,000 (£1,175), while drivers also had their daily earnings taken off them at gunpoint. “We don’t know how they knew that a commuter had just withdrawn a large sum of money.” Makata said he knew of a nurse who was robbed and killed, while four taxi operators were also killed
in Mamelodi
recently. “The number of robberies that have been registered is over 100 and these cases are spiralling as these crimes are becoming a norm.” He said the Pretoria CBD was a huge area of concern. Makata said the taxi industry had decided on a plan to curb the crimes by placing the taxi association monitoring unit on hotspot areas to conduct stop-and-search operations. “We are planning to have more members monitoring the taxi routes as well as heading into townships such as Mamelodi to address these issues and create awareness. “We managed to nab a few suspects recently who were handed over to the police.” He warned these criminals to stay clear from the taxi industry otherwise “there would be trouble”. National Taxi Alliance spokesperson Stephens Mathebe said communities were shying away from using taxis “as though we are the cause of these crimes”. “If we had it our way, we would have stopped this a while back.” He said he believed these crimes could have been committed by former employees.
JANUARY 2022
NEW YORK CITY LENDER TO TAXI DRIVERS CHARGED WITH FRAUD
Shares of Medallion Financial Corp. were halted in December after U.S. regulators accused the New York-based lender to cabbies of seeking to illegally boost its stock price amid intense competition from Uber and Lyft. Aljazeera reports that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleged that after a string of boom years, Medallion floundered as the popularity of ride-sharing apps caused the value of taxi medallions, which were used as collateral for loans, to plummet. As the company’s stock plunged since 2013, it tried to drown out short-sellers by flooding media websites with bogus news articles, the SEC said in a complaint filed in federal court. Medallion shares were halted on Wednesday 29 December, after the stock slumped more than 50% to $3.94. They then resumed trading, paring losses to about 33%. The company traded almost as high as $18 a share eight years ago. The regulator said the company’s president, Andrew Murstein, paid a public relations firm to produce hundreds of posts - often under pseudonyms - that touted Medallion. Articles, which were designed to appear as if they came from actual investors who were bullish on the company, appeared on sites such as Huffington Post. The regulator also accused Murstein of pressuring invest- ment banks to inflate the valuation of the company’s Medallion Bank unit. The move, which wasn’t disclosed to investors, resulted in the subsidiary’s fair value jumping to $280m at the end of 2016, from $166m just two quarters earlier even as the price of medallions slumped, the SEC said. “Companies also cannot shop for higher valuations when there is no evidence to support them,” Richard Best, director of the SEC’s New York regional office, said in a statement. The SEC said that it’s suing to force the company to repay investors. The regulator is also seeking to fine the company and bar Murstein from serving as an officer or director of a publicly-traded company for some period of time. “We intend to vigorously defend against the SEC’s unfounded charges,” Medallion said in a statement. “None of the allega- tions in the SEC complaint gives rise to a securities violation, and we are confident that the full record will show that Medallion and Andrew Murstein complied with the law.”
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